What inspired Munch to paint The Scream?
In a note in his diary Munch described his inspiration for the image thus: “I was walking along a path with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature”. Sabrina Laurent (May 2005) deduced from Munch’s description of his inspiration that the person in the foreground is the artist himself who “is not in fact screaming but simply reacting with horror to the scream of Nature.
